Make a Difference next week with Recovering the Pine Belt

Join your neighbors in prayer and giving this Sunday as we kick off Recovering the Pine Belt during Make a Difference Week.

Our community needs your help. Be a small part of a much larger community initiative to help our friends and neighbors across the Pine Belt recover from the February tornado.

A small group of dedicated volunteers have been working hard and giving generously to help in the recovery of more than 700 families who are not capable of recovering on their own. However, it is not enough. We need the entire community engaged with us. I hope many of you believe, as I do, that charity begins at home. We're starting the week with our faith-based community because we know that is where lives are changed and hearts are healed. Join your neighbors in unity of prayer and giving this Sunday.

As executive director of our local long-term recovery agency, R3SM, I have seen and heard the needs presented first-hand. Imagine three generations, the youngest being just 9 months old, living in a home with virtually no roof. The roof was so badly damaged, totally covered with a tarp, none of them should have been living there.

However, due to life circumstances they had no other option. Today, they have a new metal roof, provided by community givers and out-of-town volunteers. I recall the veteran who had some means but not quite enough to complete the needed repairs to his home. His home also has been restored because of community giving and out-of-town volunteers who provided the labor.

I'm haunted by the situation of our senior neighbor, whose husband was so traumatized by the storm that he had to be placed in a nursing home. She is patiently waiting for her now-demolished home to be rebuilt. She's holding onto the hope that someday when her home is rebuilt, her husband might be able to return home.

Unfortunately, these families are not alone in their need, but fortunately because of you, they will not be alone in their recovery. We have 99 families approved for help and we are not done yet.

Make a difference in Recovering the Pine Belt by visiting www.volunteerhattiesburg.org to join us in giving time, money or an in-kind donations of new building materials.

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Make a Difference next week with Recovering the Pine Belt

Join your neighbors in prayer and giving this Sunday as we kick off Recovering the Pine Belt during Make a Difference Week.